GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

FEBRUARY 23, 1996

Evenings Out

Eight bullets eight years

The aftermath of an anti-gay murder

by Andrea L.T. Peterson

In May 1988, on the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania, a shooting attack left twentyeight-year-old Rebecca Wight dead. Her partner, Claudia Brenner, was seriously wounded. The man who shot them, Stephen Roy Carr, knew only one thing about the two women he saw camping near the trail—that they were lesbians. That was apparently all he needed to know. Carr is currently serving a life sentence with no parole for the murder of Wight.

In Eight Bullets: One Woman's Story of Surviving Anti-Gay Violence, Brenner writes a profoundly personal, emotionally riveting, politically energizing account of the murder and its aftermath: her path to recovery and activism.

Andrea L.T. Peterson: Tell me a bit about your lives before the shooting. Were you active within the gay and lesbian community?

Claudia Brenner: I grew up in New York and came to Ithaca to study at Cornell. I came out as a sophomore. I had several significant relationships by the time I was 21. I was out to my family... in the community. Pretty involved in what has become the "queer movement."

Rebecca grew up all over the world. Her father was a diplomat. She was studying in Blacksburg [Virginia, when we met]. She had a sense that she was bisexual, but hadn't had a significant relationship. She wasn't really out.

How has your involvement in the community changed since the assault?

I was catapulted into many things: the criminal justice system, a murder trial, health care. I didn't anticipate any activism. During the trial I was advised not to discuss the case-not to speak publicly, until the court proceedings were over. That turned out to be excellent advice.

That first year [while the trial proceeded], I was mostly concerned with the court proceedings, mourning Rebecca, and understanding how my life would be changed in such a dramatic way.

It was excellent advice not to discuss the case?

It gave me a year of privacy. And time to integrate "anti-gay violence," the continuum of violence. The hostile climate we have makes people [like Carr] feel they have permission [to commit acts of anti-gay violence]. Carr felt it was perfectly acceptable to kill two lesbians.

I couldn't have done what I do now if I didn't have time to do my work.

What do you mean by "integrate antigay violence the continuum of violence"? Before the shooting I didn't understand the context of anti-gay violence. I, most people, believe anti-gay violence is harassment. It's not that dangerous or scary.[There's

Rebecca Wight and Claudia Brenner in 1988.

so much] misinformation about how serious it really is.

The shooting has blown those illusions away. We, as gay and lesbian people, are afraid of being killed-even though it doesn't happen very often—and that keeps us in line. Our case brought it to the forefront. That's what people have told me as I have travelled. How and when did you decide to become active in the campaign against antigay violence?

I had already discussed the media surrounding the case with Kevin Berrill, thendirector at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's anti-violence project in Washington. It wasn't until 1989 when the statistics on anti-gay violence for the year 1988 were to be presented to the Congress that Kevin asked me to be present. I didn't realize then that that was my entry [into activism], on a pretty large scale.

We were invited to major network TV shows, to speak...

Are you an activist full-time now? I'm a registered architect in New York, where I was working full time until last summer when my son was born. Now I work part time. I could have become a full time activist, but I always wanted to be an architect. I didn't want my whole career path to be altered. I wanted balance.

And now? Your life is back on track, balanced and your physical recovery is complete? -

My physical recovery was as complete as it was going to get within a few months [of the shooting], except some dental work... not anything debilitating.

Emotionally?

Post-traumatic stress disorder, that's what they call it. It crops up, I do some work, it crops up again.

Something triggers [memories and fear]. Something that happened very recently was

I was walking with [my son] Reuben. We were looking at some horses. A man stopped in his car-an unsavory man-and he began talking to me about the horses. Then he drove off.

I memorized his license plate. My response was probably appropriate, but the level of fear that I experienced was more than most people. I was badly shaken for several hours.

My healing has been substantial, but it will always be true that this has happened, Rebecca was shot, things have changed.

Claudia Brenner today.

Having had your experience, then virtually reliving it during the trial, what was writing the book like? Were you reliving it all again?

I wrote the book because I wanted the product to exist. I'm not actually a writer, that's why I had a co-author. I didn't feel like the writing of the piece was cathartic when I was doing it, but once it was over and actually was published, first I had this feeling of vulnerability, at the intimacy of the book, but afterwards I had this feeling of elation at actually having completed the project. And in some ways there was a feeling that some kind of heaviness had left me.

How do you live cautiously without living in fear? How has the shooting changed how you behave in public?

I'm no less demonstrative in public than before. I'm not always expecting tragedy. But [when] a trigger [affects me], I get in deeper and quicker than most people would. What are your thoughts on gun control?

Carr stole the gun. If there were less guns in general, there would be less guns to steal. I'm in favor of controlling weapons, but despair about how ineffective government control is.

It never occurred to me to be a gun control activist.

Because you weren't shot by a gun so much as by a violent homophobe? Yeah.

What, in a nutshell, is your message about anti-gay violence?

Anti-gay violence is not a matter of harassment; it's a matter of life and death. Anti-gay violence falls on a continuum, from jokes, verbal abuse, to bashing and murder. Society says anti-gay violence is okay. And finally, we as gay people can't be paralyzed by fear. We need to be motivated to secure and keep our rights. If we allow ourselves to be paralyzed by fear, they will have succeeded.

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